Summary: There was fault by the Council in cancelling a housing offer within a time extension it had granted for the family to submit further evidence. However, even without this fault the offer would have been withdrawn on other grounds. Recommendations for a remedy and service improvements are made.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains about the Council’s decision to suspend her housing application and cancel an offer of housing before she had the opportunity to provide further evidence that confirmed she was eligible. Mrs X says this has led her family missing out on a larger property.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I have considered information provided by Mrs X and the Council including the correspondence between the parties and the Council’s housing allocation policy.
5. I have made enquiries of the Council and considered its replies.
6. Mrs X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

The offer of housing

7. The Council’s policy says that to be a ‘qualifying person’ on the housing register an applicant’s family household income must not exceed £31,000.
8. Mrs X says she and her partner had been on the housing register for two years and living in a damp one bedroom property with their two year old child when the Council offered them a two bedroom property in October 2018. The offer was subject to proof of eligibility.
9. The property needed repairs and the Council advised Mrs X that the property would not be ready until January 2019. The Council then sought information from Mrs X to confirm eligibility.
10. The Council says the offer in October was an initial offer subject to eligibility. It says it can take on average 2 to 3 months before a property is ready to let from the original void stage and as a person’s circumstances can change, the full eligibility checks are only undertaken at the final offer stage.
11. Mrs X provided wage slips requested by the Council in December.
12. The offer was confirmed on 14 January with a tenancy start date on 21 January, subject to property inspection, proof of finances and proof of clear rent. Mrs X was invited to view the property. The family accepted the offer on Monday 14 January by email and a meeting at the property arranged for Friday 18 January.
13. An officer calculated that the family’s income may exceed the threshold and requested more financial information. The officer telephoned again on 15 January to advise as household income did exceed £31,000 Mrs X was not eligible to be on the housing register.
14. On 16 January the family provided more information, in particular Mrs X advised she had reduced her work hours in January and this would bring their income within the threshold of £31,000. Mrs X said this would show in her February 2019 payslip. The Council said Mrs X could provide further evidence from her employer about this to be received by that afternoon.
15. Mrs X said she could not get the evidence from the employer until the next day but asked a Councillor for a time extension on 16 January, which she says was agreed. The Council denies this.
16. Despite the extension the officer had agreed, on the afternoon of 16 January the Council made a decision suspending the family’s housing application and cancelling the offer of the two bedroom property. It sent Mrs X a letter to this effect on 17 January.
17. On 18 January Mrs X’s employer provided evidence confirming she had resigned from her job. The Council says Mrs X had not explained she intended to voluntarily resign from her job to keep within the income threshold.
18. Mrs X requested a review and a Councillor also complained on their behalf. They complained the Council had agreed an extension of time to provide further information but cancelled their application before this period expired.
19. The Council accepted the further evidence on income showed the family was within the financial threshold and it allowed the family to re-join the housing register and backdated registration to 18 January 2019. It awarded Band 3 overcrowding priority. Mrs X queried this as they had previously been placed in Band 2 (a higher band).
20. The Council responded to the complaint on 20 June. It said that its policy was to look at current and projected income over a 12 month period. The evidence Mrs X provided in December 2018 showed the family income significantly exceeded the threshold and as a result the offer was withdrawn, and the application cancelled on 16 January. The family was allowed to reapply with their change of circumstances and re-joined the register from 18 January, but the Council said this was after the application had been correctly withdrawn.
21. The Council explained Band 2 was incorrect because Mr and Mrs X’s child was below the age when additional points would be awarded for overcrowding that would move them into a higher band. Presently they had a need for one additional bedroom as they were already in a one bedroom property but when their child was aged three then Band 2 priority would be awarded.
22. In response to my enquiries the Council told me its policy related to current income and so, even if it had waited to assess the further information, Mr and Mrs X were not qualifying persons for the housing register due to their income exceeding the threshold at the time the offer was made.

The banding error

23. When the Council reinstated the family to the housing register it was to a lower band. The Council says this is because Mrs X was previously wrongly placed in Band 2 due to an error on her application form. The Council says this means it would have withdrawn the offer in January 2019 in any event.
24. Mrs X denied any error on the application form and provided me with a copy of the Council’s original acceptance letter of 23 August 2017. This confirmed their application had been accepted and they had been put in Band 2 because of ‘severe overcrowding’. The letter said they could apply for a property with a minimum of one bedroom and a maximum of two bedrooms. The Council explained there were 3 bands where Band 1 is the highest and Band 3 the lowest.
25. The Council provided me with a copy of the application form. This stated Mrs X and her partner and daughter lived in a one bedroom flat and had moved there in April 2015. Mrs X gave her daughter’s date of birth. The form asked how many bedrooms the household had access to. Mrs X / her partner had entered zero.
26. Mrs X told me the Council knew they had access to one not zero bedrooms as they rented from the Council. However, the Council told me that overcrowding priority is system generated and derived from the number of bedrooms a household is eligible for against the number of bedrooms the household currently had access to. As the application form stated the family had access to no bedrooms but had three occupants then the system automatically identified need and eligibility for two bedroom accommodation. As the system calculated the family to be two bedrooms short of what they were eligible for, they were placed in Band 2 ‘severe overcrowding’ instead of Band 3 ‘overcrowding priority’. Band 3 overcrowding is where there is a need for one additional bedroom and Band 2 where there is a need for two additional bedrooms.
27. The Council says the banding error was only discovered when officers did the final checks and realised the family had access to one bedroom already rather than zero bedrooms as stated on their original application.

Analysis

28. The Council’s housing policy does not clarify whether income is based on the previous twelve months, current income or projected income. The Council did however tell the family in June 2019 it was based on current and projected income. The Council has provided inconsistent responses on this point, including to the Ombudsman, this is fault.
29. The Council did tell the family on 16 January they could put in further information from Mrs X’s employer. It was not reasonable to expect an employer to provide this the same afternoon. The Council should have allowed a few days for this information and delayed its decision until it had considered this. It had time to do so before the property was ready. Failure to do so was fault. Had the Council delayed its decision by a few days it would have decided (as it did later) that on projected income the family was financially eligible due to Mrs X’s reduced income from January 2019.
30. The Council was wrong to cancel the application on 16 January when the time extension agreed had not expired. The Council wrongly treated the further financial information as a new application rather than a continuation of the previous one. However, when it considered the information it realised that the family was in the wrong band due to already having access to one bedroom.
31. I am not critical that the Council has an automatic system to generate priority. I am satisfied that had the Council not cancelled the application on 16 January prematurely on financial grounds, it would still have withdrawn the offer due to the incorrect banding as it is likely there were higher priority families waiting for housing.
32. Mrs X has however suffered an injustice as her waiting time has only been backdated to January 2019, not 2017.

Agreed action

33. Within four weeks of my final decision the Council will:
• Apologise to Mrs X
• Backdate Mrs X’s waiting time on the register to the original date in 2017.
34. The Council will remind officers that when a time extension is agreed this should be clearly recorded on the file, the extension should be for a realistic period of time and decisions should not be made until the time has expired.
35. The Council will check that its policy and practice on whether current or future income is used in assessing eligibility is being applied consistently.

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Final decision

36. I have completed my investigation. There was fault by the Council in failing to honour a time extension to provide more evidence before withdrawing an offer of accommodation, however this would not have altered the outcome of the application.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman